She should call for help. She didn't want to be laughed at again.
There was somebody at her front door.
Somebody who knocked.
It wasn't much of a knock. More like another series of soft scrapes. Syncopated and slow. For some reason, Timmie thought of every old urban legend, from the Hook to the hung guy with his shoes scraping the top of the lovers' car, all making slow, syncopated noises in the dead of night.
"Who's there?" she called out, feeling like an idiot.
All she had to do was check out the window. Make sure there was somebody on her porch. Call the police.
She took a step. She took another. She heard a muffled sound like a man's voice on the other side of her door. It was the Hook. She just knew it. Or worse. It was Jason, finally deciding to escalate the issue into insanity.
"What do you want?" she called more loudly, feeling really stupid now.
Timmie pulled back the curtain to check out front. She could see the porch, glossy gray flooring, clean white rails and wicker furniture. Empty sidewalk bordered by twin yellow columns of chrysanthemums. Some kind of large, lumpy shadow at her door.
"Move back so I can see you!" she yelled.
She got an answer. She just couldn't make it out. So she picked up the baseball bat and opened the front door.
And screamed.
The shadow hadn't been leaning over at her door. It had been leaning on her door. The minute she opened it, the weight forced it wide open. Timmie jumped back. A body landed on her floor with a smack and lay sprawled at her feet.
"Oh, for God's sake," she snapped in disbelief. "Murphy!"
That was when she realized that he hadn't fallen because he was drunk. He'd fallen because he was bleeding like a stuck pig.
Chapter 14
"Jesus, Murphy, what happened?"
M There was blood on his face, all down the front of his shirt, caked in his hair. There were bruises and scrapes on his knuckles, a couple of good rips in what was probably his only sports coat, and a funny catch to his breathing Timmie recognized all too well. Either Murphy had run afoul of the only grizzly in the state of Missouri, or he'd had the crap beaten out of him.
Timmie didn't even notice her nylon snag on the hardwood floor as she dropped to her knees next to him. "Murphy?"
"Nnngh."
At least he was getting his eyes open. Timmie tossed aside her bat to check his pulse. A little fast, but not thready. Not slow and bounding, which would have signaled a head injury. She lifted both eyelids to make sure his pupils were round and reactive to light. They were. Timmie also saw a spark of cognizance flickering in that deceptive green. He was in there, he just hadn't decided whether or not he wanted to make an appearance.
"Oh, Murphy!" she called as if he were a kid she wanted to come out and play. Unbuttoning his shirt and pulling his tie loose, she did a quick assessment with knowing hands to find a couple of lumps behind one ear, an impressive cut at his hairline, and more than one tender area over his left ribs and right kidney. "Come on. You got all the way to my house. Now tell me what happened."
He blew out a breath and flinched. So did Timmie. She could have stoked a Bunsen burner on that breath.
She sat back, disgusted with them both. With him for having evidently jumped off the wagon right into a bar fight and herself for feeling disappointed.
"Tell me what happened or I roll you right back out the door," she demanded, ready to get back up.
He didn't open his eyes again. "You're going to tell me... I had a drink."
"I don't think it'll come as a surprise to you."
He nodded his head fractionally and winced again. "Couldn't seem to... get here without a little painkiller."
"So you got beaten up before you got drunk?"
That at least got one eye open. "I'm not drunk, Leary. Trust me... I know the difference."
"And you got beaten up how?"
The eye closed. He spent a moment bracing his ribs with his hand. "Nice dress, Leary. Was the big date tonight?"
It was all Timmie could do to keep from hitting him. "You're asking for another bruise, Murphy. What happened?"
"I got jumped... Oh, Jesus, I forgot how much that hurts."
"You got jumped?" she demanded. "In Puckett?"
"By somebody with jackboots."
Jackboots. Oh, boy. Timmie let her own breath out and rested back on her heels. The only jackboots she'd seen in this town had been worn by the cops. "Where? When?"
"Ten... I think. My place. Three of them, maybe four. It all kind of blurred after that first boot."
"And so you came here instead of calling 911 because you didn't want to run into the same cops who jumped you?"
He managed a twitch of a smile. "You did live in L.A., didn't you?"
Even considering the evening she'd had, she had to grin. "You need to get checked over, Murphy."
"Thought you were a forensic nurse."
"That doesn't make me an X-ray machine. Let me call the paramedics. I'm not licensed to handle this. Especially if you've ended up with a pneumothorax or a bad kidney."
"And if I refuse?"
"I don't have any release-from-responsibility forms around here."
He bent a jean-clad leg to evidently ease the discomfort in his stomach and grunted with the effort. "I need some... stitching, Leary. Some ice. Not a new kidney."
She grimaced. "Familiar with the symptoms, are you?"
He grimaced right back. "Occupational hazard. I can breathe fine, my neck's not even sore, and I already peed on my own."
"No blood?"
He grinned. "No blood."
It finally dawned on Timmie that cold air was swirling in the still-open door. Jumping to her feet, she closed it, locked it, and returned to shove aside the pile of magazines to get to the Chippendale secretary in which her grandmother had stored the linen napkins. Perfect for stanching blood.
"Have you been... uh, tested lately?" she asked.
He grinned like a teenager. "During my latest unfortunate incarceration. I may be a headcase, but I'm a careful headcase."
She went back to getting her hands bloody. "And when you were dancing with these guys, did they deliver any message?"
"Your basic 'Be on the noon train outta town.'"
She nodded. "So you're upsetting people again."
"In my line of work, we prefer to say I'm getting close to the truth."
"Uh-huh." Pushing a stiff mass of hair back off his forehead, she assessed the two-inch cut that looked like it had been made with a blunt object. Maybe a nightstick or a flashlight. "You know the drill?"
He was still smiling, as if this were all faintly amusing. "Daniel Patrick Murphy. Timmie Leary's living room floor. Thursday, October thirtieth."
Oriented to person, place, time. He really did have the routine down. Timmie pressed a napkin against the cut and got a muffled oath for her trouble.
"I'll call Barb," Timmie said. "I can trust her."
"No. Just you."
Timmie sighed, furious with herself. With him. With whoever had done this. Murphy really did look like hell. And he'd brought it right to her door, as if she could make it better. What the hell was she, Caregivers "R" Us? With her own muffled oath, Timmie swiped an old olive-green throw pillow from the couch and slipped it beneath his head. "I don't have my own suture kit, Murphy. Besides, Barb can at least get you some Darvon."